Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Girl's (Un)Birth Story

10 years ago today, The Girl was born. I decided, in celebration of her birthday, I'd tell you all her (un)birth story.

If only birthing was aseasy as a stork deliveringa baby...

Why unbirth?

Because on other mommy blogs, the birthing stories are perfect- unicorns and fairies helped aid in a painless water birth (no epidural of course) where the child came out not even screaming, but singing a beautiful song, and the mom never even smeared her eyeliner, and 6 weeks later, not only had she lost all of the actual baby weight, but another 10 pounds on top of that.

I was awakened at 4:30 one morning by stomach pains. Son of a bitch, gotta pee every 10 minutes, can't get comfortable, now I'm being woken up at 4:30 to go to the bathroom- figures. After the first trip, which yielded nothing by the way, I climbed back into bed. Then I realized I was starving, so I hobbled back out of bed and made some peanut butter sandwiches (my late night snack of choice) and then climbed back into bed. More stomach pains. They went on for 30 minutes, me getting out of bed, heading to the bathroom, nothing happening, climbing back into bed, flipping through the channels on the TV because, at this point, I had decided to give up on going back to sleep.

Son of a bitch, this is the weirdest case of diarrhea ever, I thought, because, well, there was no diarrhea. Cramps, yes, nausea, yes, but nothing else. Pregnancy is extremely screwed up.

Then the light bulb came on. I grabbed Hubby's watch, and sure enough, these stomach pains I had been having were 8 minutes apart, almost exactly. So, I woke Hubby up (it was probably closer to 6am at this point), and shared the exciting news.

At noon I called the hospital. My contractions were 7 minutes apart, but I had been in labor since 4:30; could I please come in? No. Not until they are 5 minutes apart for an hour or more, consistently.

Son of a... Okay, whatever. I took walks, had already called the family, and they were on the way (they lived 3 hours away at the time).

I called the hospital again. 6 and a half minutes apart. Can I come now? No. They advised me to rest, sleep, and eat. Whatever.

My family got there that evening, and my mom took to the watch. Contractions were 5 minutes apart, 6 minutes, 4 minutes. I called the hospital again. This time they knew me by name. No, the contractions had to be 5 minutes apart for an hour or more, not an average of 5 minutes apart. Damn it.

As the contractions became more regular, I started preparing. Had my toe nails painted, attempted shaving my legs, which, when you are 9 months pregnant and liked to eat like I did, was like trying to lay down one of those weeble wobble toys. I'd stretch down, then just pop back up. Shaving the legs was just not happening; great, I hope the nurses don't mind (all moms can laugh their asses off at that, because you know that went through your mind, and you know damn well the nurses didn't give a shit).

Around 7 or 8 that night, we hit the 5 minutes apart for an hour. So, we packed everyone up, and headed to the hospital. I got there, hand them my birthing plan (this was my first baby, you know I had one), and they immediately told me the first 3 things on the list couldn't happen; no candles, no walking around the hospital, and unless I brought my own birthing ball, I was shit out of luck for that one.

Son of a.... Okay, whatever. They checked me, and I was only 4 cm. They put me under observation for an hour, but they told me if I had no change in that hour, they were sending me home. Apparently this was a new nursing staff, one that had not gotten to know me so well over the phone earlier that day. An hour goes by, and I was now 4 1/2 cm, enough for them to keep me.

Are you in pain? No, please read my birthing plan, I don't want pain meds. And, if we could allow my water to break naturally, instead of having one of the doctors break it, I'd be really happy with that.

I didn't see it at the time, but thinking back, I'm pretty sure the nurses laughed at me as they were walking out of the door.

I tried sleeping on an off for a few hours, but the pain got to be pretty intense. About 4 that morning (now having been in labor for 24 hours), Hubby saw how crazy in pain I was, and the nurses practically begged me to get an epidural because I was going to need to get some rest. I was only at 6 cm, and it became do or don't time; if I let it go any further, I wouldn't be able to get my epidural. I seriously didn't want meds, but let me tell you- labor hurts, and I had been going through it for 24 hours now. I thought that was Queen Bitch enough of me, so I gave into the meds.

Best decision ever. I got my epidural, and fell asleep immediately. In fact, I almost slept through the on call doctor sneaking in before her shift ended, and breaking my water for me- bitch! Did she not read my birthing plan? I didn't even know who that doctor was; she just raped my amniotic sack and bolted, no name, no phone number, no loving.

I got a little more sleep in, before my doctor came in, checked me, and told me it was time to have a baby. For a first time birth, things went relatively easy, maybe an hour or so from start of pushing until my daughter was born. And, just for the record, the epidural had pretty much worn off by this point, so I was telling the nurses when I needed to push, instead of them guiding me through the process.

A little after 10 that morning, March 11th, after 29 1/2 hours of labor, my daughter was born- 8lbs, 15 oz (yeah, huge baby). The doc put her on my chest, and I got lost in the world. All I could see was my beautiful daughter and my husband.

Which was probably a good thing, because little did I know, I was slightly hemorrhaging after the birth. Don't get me wrong, I had never done this before, but I did think something was up, because the doctor would not leave from my nether regions, and requested a bucket. The nurses just told my husband and I to concentrate on our baby girl, and it wasn't until everything was fine again, and we were in our room, that the doctor told me just how bad it was. Apparently there was some internal bleeding that he couldn't figure out from where it was coming. I would be weak, and needed to eat and drink to build my strength, but he stopped the bleeding and all was groovy now.

And, for the record, of my original birth plan, the only thing that actually stuck was Hubby giving our daughter her first bath, shortly after she was born. Yes, I had read the whole thing about water being a good adjustment medium for the baby, so while the doc was trying to stop my bleeding, Hubby bonded with his daughter.

Things after that were pretty normal, I assume. Fast forward 10 years to a beautiful girl, who resembles her daddy (poor child), has an attitude from hell, very outspoken, and worries about everything (which drives me up the wall).

I didn't have a disaster of a birth (The Ginger's unbirth story is almost the definition of nightmare), but it wasn't accompanied by unicorns and fairies, either. And, the baby weight? Yeah, I carried around the last 5-10 pounds of it until I got pregnant with The Ginger a year and a half later.

All in all, I wouldn't change a thing, and I am thankful everyday for my beautiful girl.

1 comment:

Wow! What a story! I didn't have a birth plan for any of mine. My first was born all natural...I had no idea what I was doing. But when it was time for the second, I just thought I would do the same thing. But since my husband was only home for the weekend, the dr. broke my water and started pitocin, my husband begged me to get the epidural about 4 hrs. later...I think he thought I was going to die! My last one came quick in the middle of the night. He was my last...been there, done that. I told them to make it quick and painless! LOL Thanks for visiting my blog!